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What is your business hoping to accomplish in 2018? Whether you are looking to build upon your successes or make improvements, you can move things in the right direction by clearly outlining your goals for both the short and long term. With a few months left in 2017, it is a good time to think about your strategy for the upcoming year. So where should you start? These quick tips may help as you prepare your roadmap for success!

1.Evaluate Your Business

Though often skipped, self-assessment is the key first step to moving forward. When you base your business’s strategy on learnings from real-time experiences, you can find your niche and what can really set you apart in the marketplace. It’s easy to get distracted by the day-to-day grind, by either staying too safe with operations as business as usual or by gravitating toward what’s on-trend with the competition. Spend some time evaluating what is currently happening within your business, both the good and the bad. This evaluation process may clue you in to an area that could be restructured for greater efficiency or it could offer insight about how to improve an already high-performing area.

2.Assess Key Relationships

Take some time to assess your key business relationships. Compare any vendors or agencies you currently use against their competition to ensure that you are getting the job you need done as efficiently and effectively as possible. Also consider how you are making payments to your outside vendors. Can those processes be improved? Are there opportunities and financial tools you could use to save or streamline the accounts payable process?

3.Assemble an Internal Think-Tank

Assemble a group or groups within your organization and task them with developing solutions, delegating a plan for improvement, or in success, determining how to maintain certain projects or relationships. Bring together individuals from different departments to greatly enhance your business’s ability to think outside the box and collaborate during the planning stages. Keep this group of individuals engaged throughout the upcoming year as they will be able to help your business adjust or modify the plan in the face of changes. Hold them accountable as they can have a significant impact on how the business will perform in the coming year.

4.Examine Your Spend Strategy

Be sure that you are aligning your spending strategy as your business evolves. What has worked in the past may not be good practice for what is to come. For example, as remote work continues to boom across the country, it may be time to adjust your budget and spending strategies to account for more of your workforce working from home or off-site. It’s also important to review and update company policies on spending and reporting, if deemed necessary. Take action and standardize where opportunities exist.

5.Review Your Recording Tools

Consider how you have historically managed, tracked and controlled spending on things like travel, materials, office supplies and subscriptions. Are there new tools available? Utilizing commercial credit cards that provide budget tracking, spending resources, and rewards programs can help you keep a handle on your bottom line, while maximizing your potential.

For example, the Arvest Corporate Credit Card with Arvest Flex Rewards™ features 24/7 online access to monitoring and management tools through CentreSuite. And from Aug. 1 through Sept. 30, 2017, Arvest is offering a one-time bonus of up to 10,000 Arvest Flex Rewards™ bonus points when you sign up for a corporate credit card. Points can be redeemed for a variety of rewards, including travel and cash back. The overall idea is to streamline your spending to work smarter, not harder in the coming year.

Though this type of examination and planning takes time and resources, making it a priority will help your business grow. Chances are the roadmap you create will keep your business on track to achieve success!

The views of this article are for general information use only. Please contact and speak with a subject expert or your banker when specific advice is needed.

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